Greg Stanley covers Rockford from how your tax dollars are spent to local politics to people making a difference. He also writes about other issues in the Rock River Valley. He has been with the Register Star since 2010.

Rob Schlichting with N-Trak Group runs an excavator during the demolition of six buildings on the east side of North Main Street begins Monday, April 15, 2013, in preparation for the construction of the roundabout at North Main and Auburn Street.

By Greg Stanley

April 15, 2013
12:01 a.m.

Today's demolitions marked the start of construction on the long-planned roundabout at Auburn and North Main streets. Six buildings will be torn down this week. And once they’re down, contractors will start the roughly $10 million project to turn the busy intersection into a two-lane roundabout.

Traffic will stay open through most of the construction, but there will be some periods where detours are in place around the intersection.

The Illinois Department of Transportation will pay for the vast majority of the work — about $9.4 million — for construction, land acquisition and demolition. The city will pay about $625,000 for street-scaping and utility work.

Construction is expected to be completed in the late fall by the end of October or early November.

The goal of the roundabout is to get traffic flowing again trough that intersection.

North Main and Auburn had been of the most dangerous intersections in the city until the early 2000s, when in response to the high number of accidents, officials changed the traditional traffic lights to “stage signals,” said Capital Program Manager Patrick Zuroske.

That means each of the four directions of traffic get one green light at a time to cross the intersection. It worked, and cut down the number of accidents. But it also blocked up traffic and as a result more and more cars have avoided the intersection entirely by cutting through once quiet neighborhoods.

“The idea is once the roundabout opens, traffic will no longer be pushed into those neighborhoods because the intersection will be free flowing and relieve that congestion,” Zuroske said.

Many of the remaining business owners near the intersection aren’t happy with the roundabout plan.

Tyler Voorhees, owner of Rockford Billiard Cafe, is concerned about customer access, both during construction and after it.

“It’s going to be a lot harder to get to our parking lot,” Voorhees said. “We’ve expressed our concern to the city about access, but the city basically said ‘tough.’ So in the meantime we’re just going to try to keep the website updated with tips and different directions to make it here.”

City engineers break down how traffic will flow once the roundabout is finished here.